MAGNETIC SOUND MACHINE

Magnetic Sound Machine decided to re-do Camel's work on their 1975 album Snow Goose. Now, I was never a fan of this record to start with. The original album is indeed beautiful and full of great melodies and catchy tunes but a full instrumental album that is supposed to tell a story???!?? What's the point?

So, when I got to know that Magnetic Sound Machine's version had a narrator on it, it raised my expectations as it would be way more interesting than the original. And it is, indeed! Problem here is, you shouldn't do that!

I'll try to explain why I think so. Camel's Snow Goose album is considered such a classic that no one in good mind would want to hear a version of it, you would just go for the original, and that's what happens here. Magnetic Sound Machine's version is indeed a bit different because of the Italian narration, but in the end, musically speaking, it's just a note-by-note songbook of the original album. In the end you go back to the original!

Though the band did an amazing work with Magnetic Sound Machine Plays The Snow Goose (2013) and the album is a strong and quite enjoyable to listen to, nothing changes the fact that this is just a labour of love and passion by the band recorded for the band itself. The audience.... well, I think old fans would just stick with the original.

But it's worth to check it anyway if you love the original.

A very wisely-chosen title and a really optimistic, green cover give a good idea of how this band sounded like at the time.This is playful, tricky and rich Jazz/Fusion, which surprisingly contains a fair amount of Canterbury inspirations, especially displayed in the dreamy keyboard parts.The result though is much more diverse.The album contains lots of lounge moments next to more pounding parts and the music is well-structured, keeping the basic principles of Jazz Rock in evidence.This one sounds more constructed than most of the Italian pioneers of 70's Jazz Fusion, PERIGEO might be an influence in the sax parts and IL BARICENTRO echoes are detected in the inventive keyboard/piano lines and solos.But there are some strong nuances from NATIONAL HEALTH and even BILL BRUDFORD at some point with the Italians exploring jazzy territories with an airy vibe and an atmospheric approach, while keeping much of the style's tension and technique.FORGAS BAND PHENOMENA is propably the closest comparison.The longer pieces are pretty great, switching from ethereal textures to Canterbury-styled solos and featuring also some powerful, dramatic twists.It still suffers from a personal point of view regarding the musical style, but ''Chromatic tunes'' seems like a passionate, well-executed entry in the world of Jazz/Fusion.

Interesting album, which will have a certain place in the collection of Jazz/Fusion fanatics, who love a vintage aura throughout their listening process.Anyone after any of the aforementioned groups will like ''Chromatic tunes'', which comes no less than warmly recommended.

One should have some basic understanding of Italian, so that one could take it as a language course simultaneously, otherwise it gets quite frustrating to have these long narrative sequences on almost each track, boosting the total length to over 61 minutes. But frankly I don't think I'd enjoy English- language narration much better. Maybe even less, since Italian is such a beautiful language actually. But it can't be helped: that goddamn narration always spoils the musical enjoyment to some degree; I have never really enjoyed e.g. Rick Wakeman's or Jeff Wayne's works with narration either.

Musically speaking, this version is very fresh, airy and clean, giving a big role to the guesting player Anna Angelone's flute. I can't tell if I would enjoy it (imagining of course that the narration wasn't there!) more than the original Camel album - by the way, I haven't yet heard their remake version -, instead it makes me think how excellent the work itself is, how fine melodies and atmospheres. Also it makes me think that if I was a musician the Snow Goose album would be a pleasure to perform.

Music is absolutely great, and whatever differences there are to the original (others than the inevitable extensions to back up the narration) they mostly just increase the freshness. But I can't rate this more than three stars... A pity. But if the very idea of having The Snow Goose with Italian narration sounds good to you, this is surely worth having.

This is their second album. It is claimed that this band plays jazz with a lot of influences from post rock and electronica. That may be the case for their debut album. But it is not the case here. This album is a pretty straight forward jazz album with some fusion elements. I am a total newbie in jazz and eager to learn more and get much more into this genre......... phew, a very long sentence..... so I I am not the right person to tell you what kind of jazz this is. But in my untrained ears, they sounds like a mix of Soft Machine, Gilgamesh, Hatfield & The North and Return To Forever. The music on this album is leaning towards Canterbury in my ears.

The playing is energetic and lively. But the band sometimes also slows down the tempo and sounds like Hatfield & The North. But most of the jazz here is straight forward with woodwinds and keyboards solos.

The reason why I am starting to like jazz more and more is albums like this album. Not all is great and well on this album. I suspect there are far better jazz albums out there than this one. But I find the sound very good and so for the songs too. This is indeed a very good album and recommended.

3.5 stars